


how we move from A to B

by hideyseek



Series: miscellanea, or author's favorites [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arthur is Good at his Job, Arthur likes them, Banter, Coffee, Competency Kink, Concierge Arthur, Customer Service, Eames Has Tattoos, Food mention, Grad Student Eames, Humor, Idiots in Love, Kissing, Kissing on the Job, M/M, Pizza, Repression, Sharing Clothes, Strangers to Lovers, Tattoos, author has worked in customer service before, but maybe he could be Good at Eames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25777198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hideyseek/pseuds/hideyseek
Summary: In which Arthur is a residential concierge, Eames is plant-sitting for Yusuf, and together, they are idiots! Featuring: IKEA furniture, Arthur’s phone voice, Eames’ coffee, andarabidopsis thaliana.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Series: miscellanea, or author's favorites [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722607
Comments: 14
Kudos: 153
Collections: Inception Big Bang 2020





	how we move from A to B

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Little Bit In Love With You [ART]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25775266) by [LemonYellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonYellow/pseuds/LemonYellow). 



> the first and most important announcement: THIS IS NOT A ONE-PART PROJECT! THERE IS ART! MOST MAGIFICENT ART BY THE MOST MAGNIFICENT [LemonYellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonYellow/pseuds/LemonYellow), AVAILABLE [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25775266) FOR YOUR PERUSAL. 
> 
> onward, to the acknowledgements, because i am incredibly beholden to a great number of people for the existence of this fic as it is. 
> 
> to the inception big bang 2020 mods: thank you for your patience! this is a week and a day late but let me just say, thank goodness i had that week and a day. 
> 
> to lemon: thank you for cheerreading all the in-between drafts, for fucking live-messaging your reaction to them so i could remember what i liked while i was figuring out how to fix things. thank you for all the hours spent planning back and forth, for showing up with some fucking gorgeous art, for sending me the videos of “little bit” by lykke li. my writing playlist for this fic is just the music video and then also that one cover. it was an absolute fucking delight to work with you on this one, i’m so fucking glad we’re friends.
> 
> to D and musing, my betas: thank you for the three hour marathon editing session, for amusing yourselves in the google doc comments while i dithered over how to describe eames’ face. thank you for letting me drop drafts on you at terribly late notice in the middle of your lives and throwing it back at me with your thoughts. i’m sorry there are no rockin’ twinks in this one, but maybe some other fic. 
> 
> to E: thanks for letting me interrogate you for half an hour about your plant research so i could steal it for yusuf. i love having friends in stem.
> 
> title from “little bit” by lykke li. vague inspirations taken from: the west wing, set it up on netflix, and modern love episode 1 “when the doorman is your main man.”

Arthur tracks apartment 317’s latest one-night stand over the pages of this week’s reread, out of the lobby elevators and across all that smooth marble. The guy’s maroon suit pants are cropped above his ankles, with a matching suit jacket swung over the shoulder of a slightly crumpled button-down. Arthur’s had his text to Ariadne ready as soon as the elevator doors opened: _Bedfellow #6, is your car around the block?_

Arthur watches him until the guy balks at the rushing night beyond the revolving door and thinks to turn toward the concierge desk. In the moment it takes for him to realize Arthur’s a solution to his problem, Arthur sticks a plastic package of utensils into the book to hold his place, taps Send, and stands up behind the desk with his best ‘aren’t you somewhere you shouldn’t be’ smile.

“Can I help you with anything, sir?” he asks mildly, pitching his voice to carry, and the guy’s face breaks into a familiar expression of moneyed relief as he strides back toward the desk.

“Yeah, _yeah_ ,” the guy says, fast. He’s drumming his fingers against the granite countertop, and his medical bracelet _clicks_ dully when he catches himself and stops. “I’m just looking for a fast ride home, you know.” Oh, Arthur knows.

Arthur says, “I can have a Lyft here in just a few minutes, sir.” Probably less, if Ariadne’s really just around the block. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting by the couches, sir?” His lockscreen flashes in his peripheral vision: _u know it_.

“I really appreciate this, man,” says the guy, eyes crinkling, broad and genial. He slaps a palm down on the countertop for emphasis — Arthur’s lived this a thousand times. 

“My pleasure.” 

The guy’s barely loped off toward the leather seating when there’s a double honk outside the building’s revolving doors. He flashes a quick show of teeth toward Arthur as he gets up, “Is that me?”

“That’s you,” Arthur confirms, all steady eye contact and hands under the counter where the guy can’t see them. He swipes away another message notification without looking.

The guy shouts a farewell once he’s outside — “I owe you one!!” — his voice muffled by the glass, and Arthur watches his reflection in the lobby windows, waving. In his work suit, Arthur is just a still dark silhouette, scaled down and somber, in the sea of yellow light. He doesn’t sit back down until he hears Ariadne’s car pull away from the curb, propping his loafers up on the desk and picking up his book. 

_hot damn_ , Ariadne texts back a chapter and a half later. _he tipped me $100_

That’s the sixth guy to wander out of the elevators during Arthur’s shift this week. Whoever the fuck the apartment-sitter in 317 is, they certainly aren’t wasting any time.

—

“Of course, Mrs. K,” says Arthur into the concierge phone the next night, tapping a pencil against the countertop. “No, ma’am, the resident isn’t picking up when I call — yeah, I have 317 for the report right here. Would you like me to go— oh, it’s no problem at all, Mrs. K, I’m happy to— oh, good, yes, yes. Yes, I’m going right up.”

He stabs at the End Call button with the eraser end of his pencil, and lets the phone clack back into its cradle. That’s the second call in as many hours, and while Arthur doesn’t ever enjoy knocking on resident doors, the octogenarians who sometimes bring Arthur cookies deserve nice things.

The problem isn’t that Arthur’s never interrupted people having loud sex with strangers, which is what Arthur’s expecting as he jogs up to the third floor. The problem is partially the music playing loudly as he shoves open the door to the third floor, but mostly, the problem is the apartment-sitter.

Arthur’s already mid-spiel when the door opens, talking loudly over the music audible even through the door: “Good evening, terribly sorry to disturb you. I hope this isn’t a bad time, I just need a minute. I’m Arth—” He chokes a little bit. 

He suddenly understands the string of one-night stands, because the temporary resident of apartment 317 is _gorgeous_. 

He’s slightly scruffy, broad-shouldered and leaning against the doorframe like he has complete control over every muscle in his body. And his _mouth_ , good lord. He’s a disproportionate number of the things Arthur likes in men, crammed into an orange hoodie.

He’s also on the phone, bobbing to the music inside, and when Arthur tears his mind back to _doing his job_ , the guy is saying, “Terribly sorry, again, I just couldn’t quite find the — oh, _must_ you put me on —” His jaw clenches, then he closes and opens his eyes very deliberately. 

Arthur knows the feeling. “Good evening, sir,” he says, looking away from the guy's mouth. “Terribly sorry, I. I hope this isn’t a, uh, a bad time? ” 317 doesn’t seem impressed, and Arthur stumbles to the end: “I’m Arthur, from the lobby concierge desk downstairs.”

“Hello, Arthur,” says 317, and dear _God_ of course he’s fucking British. He’s still holding the phone to his cheek, and he’s smirking a little as he says, “I’m on hold again. I’ve called six times and I think the IKEA people are sick of me not being able to tell my screws apart.”

“I’m here about a noise complaint,” says Arthur gamely, eyes fixed on the phone. Arthur prompts, “There’s a really lot of music happening right now, if I could ask —”

“ _Tell_ me about it,” says 317 with feeling, pulling the phone briefly away from his ear to gesture with it. “I’ve been listening to _elevator pop_ for the last hour.”

There’s no way he’s serious. Arthur can feel the music _through_ his loafers, Mrs. K wasn’t joking around. He coughs and takes advantage of the next break in the music to say, “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but I’ve been getting some noise complaints down at the concierge desk, and I do need you to to turn down the music.”

“The _laptop_ music,” says 317 finally, like it’s taken that long to sink in. Maybe he’s tired. “Okay, yeah, sorry. No problem at all.” 

“Fantastic,” says Arthur, as the door starts to close on 317’s face. Out of nothing but habit he adds, “Anything else I can do for you tonight, sir?”

The door swings open again, thudding against the doorstop in a way that sounds a little painful. 317’s face sticks back out, “Do you think you could get ahold of the IKEA people for me?”

“What?” says Arthur, who’d expected silence or _thank you_ or _take care_. “I mean, excuse me?”

“I'm apartment-sitting for my good friend, Yusuf,” says 317 and Arthur nods. He’d been briefed about it. 317 continues, “Anyway, long story short I was ... messing around and his chair broke. I need to fix it before he gets back but there’s no manual and my brain doesn’t work like this. I’m hoping that if the call’s from a different number, they’ll prioritize it, if you could get them on the line?”

Of course Arthur could. Arthur can get anybody in the world on the phone in three calls or fewer.

But he’s thinking about one-upping the other concierge staff on resident gossip, he’s thinking about the sometimes-oppressive silence of the downstairs lobby. He’s thinking about how really, this is the kind of above and beyond service he aims to provide. 

Arthur touches the pager at his waist lightly and says, “Actually, I can do you one better. Why don’t you let me come in and take a look?”

317’s face splits in a grin, “Oh, that’d be _brilliant_. I’ve got pizza on the way.” He hangs up, and Arthur follows him into the apartment, loses the _snick_ of the door closing in the sudden end to the music.

The apartment is _nice,_ nicer than Arthur would have expected for a grad student of the kind 317 is describing, who Arthur’s seen walking through the lobby sometimes during his shifts. The apartment is covered in plants that Arthur doesn’t recognize, a hodgepodge of greenery.

“Nice plants,” says Arthur, for lack of anything better.

317 laughs quietly as he leads Arthur into a study, describing, “It’s Yusuf’s, his family’s. He studies how plants decide when to grow, or something. I’m just here because he’s at a conference for the week and he needed someone to plant-sit.” He pokes at some pieces of metal and plastic on the floor. “Here’s the chair, anyway.” 

Piecing the desk chair together is excruciating. Arthur kneels in his uniform suit, 317 seated inquisitively at a distance that doesn’t feel like much of a distance, reaching for pieces in a way that pulls his suit jacket taut, squinting at screws to tell them apart. Arthur feels overexposed, hyperware of his hands and shoes and knees, finds himself fighting the urge to hunch in his shoulders.

He can imagine the way he looks right now, kneeling on plush white carpet, the line of the screwdriver like a knife in his hand, some other facet of the solemn figure in the blazing lobby lights, sharp shadows and economical movements. It takes barely twenty minutes but it feels like an eternity.

Arthur’s stiff when he stands back up, nudging a leg with the tip of a loafer. “There you go,” he says, unnecessarily. 

317 rockets up out of his cross-legged position. He’s beaming, dragging the chair upright and saying, “Oh, brilliant. _Brilliant_ ,” turning to Arthur with unfamiliarly genuine relief.

“My pleasure,” says Arthur, which is a lot more true than this guy probably knows.

317’s still talking with a little bob of his head and his hand pressed to his heart. “You know,” he says, laughing a little in a way Arthur is starting to suspect is just how he is. “Maybe if this concierge thing doesn’t work out for you, you could look into architecture or home improvement or something.”

“I’ve actually always wanted to be a concierge,” says Arthur, apologetically. 

317 laughs properly this time, mouth open and his whole body shaking, a charming little wrinkle to his nose. “Of course you did,” he says _._

“Anything else I can help you with?” asks Arthur, swallowing hard. 

As soon as 317 starts to shake his head, Arthur stutters out, “Have a good night,” and bolts for the door. His trip downstairs is just the clatter of his own feet against concrete.

Arthur steps into the lobby through the stairwell doors in the same moment that the pizza guy emerges through the main doors. They stare at each other for a long, surprised moment. Arthur is standing outside 317’s door six minutes later with the hot box of pizza and its accompanying stack of napkins balanced gingerly in the palm of his left hand. It smells fucking _amazing_ , like mushrooms and anchovies and _cheese_. 

317 opens the door and Arthur is ready this time. He says, “Here’s your pizza,” and thrusts the box at him. “Also, can I get your name for the event report?” It’s a little blunt, but Arthur is having a _weird_ night and he would love for it to not get weirder if at all possible.

“Eames,” says 317, and then catches him by the elbow and says, “Let me give you some slices to go. You’re just rattling around downstairs all by yourself in the cold, otherwise.” 

“That’s quite alright,” Arthur insists, “the lobby’s heated.”

“What,” says Eames, already fumbling with the box and the stack of napkins, “do you not eat? Just take the damn pizza.” He gestures with the open box at Arthur. “It’s _really_ just pizza.” 

“I do eat,” says Arthur. So he watches Eames carefully align two slices of pizza face-to-face and bundle them together with a fistful of grease-splotched brown napkins. “Alright, then,” Arthur says, taking it from him. “Thank you.” 

Just this once couldn’t hurt.

“Oh, of course,” says Eames, dragging up a slice from the box by the crust and demolishing almost half of it in a single bite. “Have a good night, darling,” he says through the mouthful, nudging the door shut with a socked foot. 

Arthur clatters downstairs juggling his pizza slice sandwich gift from hand to hand and eats them standing up behind the front desk, dripping cheese onto the folded napkin in his hand instead of his work shirt. The pizza is crisp and gooey and _wonderful_ , but he keeps thinking about Eames doing the same thing a staircase away. When Arthur types up the event report, he spends twelve minutes looking up how to spell _Fjällberget_ and doesn’t mention the pizza at all. 

—

The next night, the elevators slide open and Arthur looks up with his phone in hand, midway through a text to Ariadne that reads, _Maybe the pattern’s broken, nobody yet tonight._

It’s Eames, dressed like he’s going out. “Heading somewhere, Mr. Eames?” asks Arthur in his best ‘just doing my job sir’ voice. 

“Going out,” says Eames cheerfully, and the pit drops out of Arthur’s stomach. So much for faith.

“Of course,” says Arthur, smiling with everything he has, dimples on full display. “Have a good night, then.”

“I plan to,” says Eames, smirking.

And then he’s out of the revolving doors _shushing_ to a stop behind him, out into the world to live and be a person. Out in the world, able to do what he wants with no regard for consequence and Arthur _knows_ he’s being unfair, but in this moment he’s so jealous his jaw aches. He loves his job but for a blinding instant he would give anything to be the kind of person that chases after Eames. 

Arthur backspaces his text and drops his phone to the desk.

What an _idiot_ Arthur had been, thinking that swanning in to fix a _chair_ would get him anywhere? The pizza must have been sheer politeness. None of that matters, anyway. At the end of the day, Arthur would still be the concierge, and at the end of the day Eames would still be a resident, however temporary that status was. 

He stares at his open book out of a bewildering combination of despair and habit, and doesn’t take in a word. 

Arthur doesn’t know how long it is, one minute or twenty, but he’s still on the same page when the front door whooshes around and someone steps into the lobby, accompanied by a rustling plastic bag. 

He has to do his job, Arthur tells himself. He has to fucking do his job. He _cannot_ be waylaid by feeling rejected without having taken any risks. He’ll look up and greet the resident in 3, 2, —

“Arthur!” 

Arthur’s head snaps up, and it’s Eames in the same dress shirt, looking no different except for a convenience store bag in his hand. Arthur stands up.

“Welcome back,” says Arthur neutrally. There are probably condoms in the bag, for _later._ “Did you have a good time?” 

“It was alright?” says Eames. “I couldn’t fall asleep, I kept thinking about chocolate.” He flashes a grin, boyish. “I figured. I’m an adult with an income, I can spend it however I like.” He shakes the bag and it rustles in the way plastic bags partially filled with chocolate bars do, with a quiet knocking sound. “Corner shop didn’t have the kind of chocolate I wanted, so I ended up getting a few different kinds.” 

He’d gone to the store for _chocolate_. He’d gone to the fucking store, and he’d come back alone _._

“Nothing wrong with trying new things,” Eames finishes cheerily. 

Arthur’s reread the book on the desk in front of him six times. “Nothing wrong,” he agrees, more earnestly than is strictly necessary. “Absolutely nothing wrong with it at all.” Something in his chest is unknotting, and slowly he remembers how to breathe again. Eames bobs his head in acknowledgement. 

“Well,” says Arthur after a moment, “I hope you—”

“Actually — sorry — is it allowed for residents to be in the lobby?” Eames is asking. He’s stopped right in front of the desk now. Arthur can smell the outside air on him. 

“Oh, go right ahead. It’s here to be used, not just looked at,” says Arthur. “Supposedly.” 

Eames snickers. “Grand,” he says, and pivots toward a couch to sit down. 

It feels weird and unprofessional to sit behind the desk with his book and his feet up in the usual way when Eames is sitting in an armchair just across the marble walkway. But it feels overly professional and oddly solicitous to stand behind the desk in something akin to parade rest, now that Eames is just thumbing at his phone and chuckling every so often.

But Eames doesn’t move and eventually Arthur sits down and, after solicitously skimming the phone logs and the notes from the evening shift, pulls his paperback back out. And if he happens to spend more time that night scanning the lobby than reading his book, he’s just taking care to be attentive when there’s a resident around. 

—

Ariadne calls him on his way home from work, right after he’s stepped off the 8:23 bus. He’s six blocks from his apartment, the sun beating down on his shoulders. He’ll have a curve of pink where his t-shirt ends that’ll sting under his uniform jacket for the rest of the week.

He answers it with a yawning, “It’s an hour before my bedtime, don’t you know?” and laughs a little when Ariadne shoots back, “Well I just started work, don’t _you_ know?” 

They have this conversation every conversation — if Ariadne slept more than five hours a night, or Arthur’s job was any farther away from where he lived, they’d probably still be friends, but it’d be harder. They’d have to work for this kind of overlap. 

Arthur is smoothed out from his walk from the bus stop, from mid-morning sunlight, strong for this time of year. He’s smiling, and he can hear it in his own voice. “What’s up?”

“I need to vent before I explode at my next passenger,” says Ariadne in a rush, like this doesn’t happen all the time. Like Arthur couldn’t pencil it into his planner: _Last 15m of commute / first 5m in apartment: Ariadne passenger rant. Repeats every Wednesday, ends Never._

“Go for it,” says Arthur, and Ariadne bursts into a stream of chatter. 

Arthur keys himself into his apartment and tunes back in to Ariadne saying, “I just. I hate it when customers ask me about my life, like I can be friendly! I can hold a pleasant, casual conversation and still _be a professional!_ Personal and professional aren’t always completely separate!” 

Arthur makes a noise. He’s been pacing around his front hall while she talks, wearing his shoes and a track into the scrubby carpet. His mind is going uncomfortably fast all of a sudden. “But—” he starts, and stops himself.

“Anyway, thanks,” says Ariadne, not seeming to have heard. She exhales in a long stream. There’s a sound like she’s gently knocking her fists against her steering wheel. “I’m good now.” 

“Of course,” says Arthur, putting effort into the sentiment. He listens to her snort and then he hangs up. 

In the relative quiet of his apartment, he kicks off his shoes and peels his socks off en route to the kitchen, leaving them on top of the dining table. He fills a cup from the kitchen sink without hearing it. He wanders with it into the living room, he swaps out the paperback in his backpack in preparation for his next shift. He drinks most of his glass of water and drizzles the last half inch over his tomato plant. Everything measured and routine, until the static in his mind filters into silence. 

— 

Arthur is three minutes late to his next shift despite his best intentions, which means he feels like he’s fighting for composure the whole shift. He hates traffic, he hates the linear nature of time, and right this moment, he hates the resident on the other end of the phone.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Arthur grits out, meaning, _it’s one-thirty in the morning, get fucked._ He’s been tracing _ASSHOLE PASTRY DELIVERY_ out on a legal pad in hard, dark strokes. “It’s not going to be easy to get delivery from a restaurant when it’s _closed_ , sir. I do understand — no, sir, I really — fine, yes. Of course not. Goodnight.”

He sets the phone down in the cradle so fucking carefully it doesn’t make a sound, and then walks into the concierge office, kicks the door shut behind him, and yells, “Fuck!”

From somewhere in the lobby, there’s an answering, “Fuck!”

Arthur whips around and dashes back out. 

Eames is slumped shirtless on the marble in a sea of papers, clutching a takeaway coffee cup. He - he has _tattoos_ all across his chest, swirling down his arms to his elbows. Arthur hadn’t known, but of course he hadn’t known. Eames looks too _real_ now, shadows along his jaw and the undersides of his arms, illuminated in place. It’s all too intimate for a lobby that belongs to neither of them. Arthur stares at the ground to avoid staring at Eames. 

There’s a momentary silence, before Arthur tells himself to get a fucking grip. 

“Are you — are you alright?” asks Arthur, moving around the desk to crouch next to Eames. “Did you _fall_?” 

Eames squints at him, and retorts, “My _thesis_ fell, I just sat down.” He slurps indignantly at his coffee. “My shoelace might have helped, though.”

Arthur laughs despite himself. “But really, are you okay?” He starts shuffling papers together.

Eames chuckles. “I’m … well enough. I actually just came downstairs for a package? Yusuf texted me about a big yellow envelope containing government secrets.” 

“You brought your coffee and your thesis with you to pick up a package?” Arthur taps the pages into alignment against the floor.

Eames opens his mouth and then closes it again. He frowns. “I think they were just in my hands when I remembered the text.” 

Arthur shoots back, grinning: “Thesis and coffee, but you didn’t think to bring a shirt?” 

Eames turns toward Arthur in surprise, the muscles in his arms shifting, his whole body moving under the light. Arthur feels suddenly, bewilderingly overdressed. There is nowhere to look except the curve of Eames’ shoulder, the line of his back. Arthur flushes. 

“Your, uh. _The_ package,” Arthur mumbles, staring at the floor. “Let me — I’ll just — I’ll go get that.” He shoves his haphazard stack of papers into Eames hands and flees. 

When Arthur gets back with the envelope in one hand and his uniform suit jacket in the other, Eames has the papers all gathered under his arm, chugging his coffee. Arthur stares at the bob of his throat for a breathless moment, then manages, “Why don’t you put this — my jacket, on. For, decency. Yeah.” He nods.

Eames stares at him for a moment and then says slowly, “Okay.” He sets coffee cup and papers on the floor, takes the jacket from Arthur’s outstretched hand, and slides it on. 

It’s a hair too big on Arthur, which makes it just a little tight in the shoulders on Eames. He looks ridiculous, shirtless in jeans and sneakers and someone else’s suit jacket in the yellow lobby. Arthur desperately thinks, _elephants, elephants, elephants_ at himself to keep from jumping immediately to: ridiculous, more like ridiculously _good-looking_. 

“Does this mean you’ll walk me up?” says Eames, picking up his papers and his coffee. 

Arthur hugs the envelope, and says, “Oh.” 

Arthur had not thought that far. Mostly Arthur had needed Eames’ shoulders out of his vision for a moment so he could function a little bit. “Certainly,” he says, in his best ‘what is happening’ voice. He’s honed it over his years of customer service. It sounds like he knows exactly what he’s getting into. 

In the third floor hallway just outside apartment 317, Eames stops and turns to Arthur and says, “I really did just forget my shirt. It’s nice when you live alone, you don’t always have to — you know.”

“Alright,” says Arthur, who strongly suspects that Eames’ sentence ends in ‘wear clothes’ _._ His hands clench and unclench on the envelope. “That’s nice.” 

Eames says, “Is it?” His whole face changes. 

Something in Arthur’s lungs mirrors it, catching and holding. His breathing shallows. Arthur looks at Eames’ mouth. Eames steps toward him, and Arthur doesn’t move.

He’s pretty sure Eames leans in first.

They’re so close to each other that Arthur’s vision is blurring, Eames’ face dissolving into nothing but planes of light. He’s just warmth and the smell of printer ink and his beautiful mouth _right there_.

Eames kisses him. 

Arthur can feel Eames’ nose sliding cold against his cheek, his mouth hot against Arthur’s own. The envelope crinkles between their chests. Eames’ hands are broad against Arthur’s shoulder and waist. Arthur’s free hand crumples the fabric of his own suit jacket against Eames’ back.

“Oh,” breathes Arthur at the end of it. Something in his chest aches softly. He swallows, he darts his tongue out to wet his lower lip. He moves to adjust his cuffs, but he’s holding Eames’ envelope. He swallows again. “Eames,” he says. 

“Yeah?” says Eames. 

Arthur’s mind vacates. “Yeah,” he breathes. 

Eames grins. “Let’s do it again sometime, hm?” From the look on his face, he means now.

Arthur exhales through his mouth. “I have to go back downstairs,” he says. It sounds a lot more like an apology than he’d expected. “And you have a thesis to work on.”

“Yeah?” says Eames without moving, like he’s willing to wake up in the morning for it if he can kiss Arthur again right now. Arthur can feel the warmth of his chest still, through the stripe of space where the jacket hangs open, where the only thing between them is Arthur’s dress shirt. 

This might be the worst thing Arthur’s ever done to himself. “I really do have to tidy up for work, Eames,” he says. “I can’t stand behind the desk as I am.”

Eames’ expression doesn’t make him feel more like an asshole, but it also doesn’t alleviate anything. “Of course not,” he says sadly, brushing fingers over Arthur’s chin, touching his shoulder. He shrugs off Arthur’s jacket. “Here’s your coat, then.”

Arthur extends the envelope in reply, and it all feels uncomfortably transactional. The envelope gives, just a little, between his fingers. When Arthur takes his jacket, the lining is warm from Eames’ skin.

“Have a good night,” Arthur says quietly. “I’ll see you.” He doesn’t know how to say anything else. He doesn’t want to leave in silence. 

“Yusuf is back late sometime tomorrow night,” says Eames, too softly. He’s smoothing one thumb over the top sheet of paper, over and over and over like he’s not thinking about it. “I’m leaving in the afternoon.”

“Oh,” Arthur murmurs. By then, Arthur’s shift will have long since ended. He says, “I’m sorry to hear that.” He looks at Eames, and says, “I really am.” The ache in his chest isn’t soft anymore.

Back downstairs, Arthur jerks the handle to get into the restroom and then shoves his way into a stall. He slings his jacket over the stall door, hears the zipper _clink_ where it hits metal. He yanks himself out of his dress shirt and flaps it around in a frustrated attempt to loosen some of the wrinkles. Eames is _leaving_ tomorrow.

When he slides it back on, he has to try three times before he manages to button the first button. When he looks down his hands, they’re trembling. Eames kissed him. He’d kissed back. He’d liked it. But Eames is leaving _tomorrow_.

Arthur reaches up to his lips without thinking, and the pressure is tender and pleasant. The muscle memory of the way his heartbeat _shuddered_ when Eames’ mouth met his is still there in his chest when he holds his breath. He breathes in, out. He whispers, “Fuck.”

A toilet flushes and Arthur goes still, heartbeat fluttering in his chest. He listens to the guy washing his hands, to the whirr of the paper towel machine. The restroom door clicks shut and it sounds like in the movies, poignant and echoing through the room. 

He stands in the restroom stall until the lights go out, a sweep of shadow across his closed eyelids. He buttons his shirt up the rest of the way in the dark, slips into his jacket and lets it straighten his posture. He breathes, deliberate and shallow, barely moving. When Arthur pushes open the stall door, the ripple of brightness shocks him. He knots his tie in the mirror standing over the line of sinks and doesn’t look anywhere but his hands.

The lobby is empty again and there’s a flashing red light for _Call Holding_ on the machine when Arthur gets behind the desk. Everything looks exactly the same as it had before Eames had come downstairs. Arthur picks up the phone and says, “Good evening, this is Arthur at the concierge desk. What can I do for you tonight?” Every word pitch-perfect, modulated and mild. 

—

It’s ridiculous for the building to feel different the next night, now that Arthur knows Eames isn’t in it, but it still does. When Arthur gets in, shaking his umbrella dry, the lobby is cold from people walking in and out throughout the evening, the floor shiny with polish and rainwater. 

“It’s not the end of the world if you don’t talk to him again,” Arthur whispers furiously to himself in the lobby restroom. “You worked this job three _years_ before this man lived here a week.” He stares himself between the eyes in the mirror and he fumbles his tie. 

Ariadne texts him, _hows it going_ , and Arthur texts back, _What if this job isn’t actually what I want?_ and sits at the desk with his back pressed hard against the desk chair, staring unfocused at the lobby until she responds. He doesn’t really know what he’d be if he wasn’t a concierge. 

_but you tell me all the time, in between ranting about the residents - it’s not just money for you_ , she sends. _you really like your job._

Arthur breathes in, out. He sends back, _that’s true._ He sends back, _but what if I want other things, too?_

Outside, the rain drips off the front awning and splatters loudly against the sidewalk. The big front windows have been fogged up for hours now, and the cafe across the street is invisible.

Around three in the morning, a white airport van pulls up outside the building, and Arthur rushes out the revolving doors with a big umbrella to escort Yusuf back in. Everything is slick and grey, blurry in the rain. Arthur hauls the door of the van open one-handed. 

“Arthur!” greets Yusuf, hovering energetically as Arthur drags his suitcases out of the van and sets them _thunking_ upright against the sidewalk. 

“Good morning, Mr. Kapoor,” says Arthur. The edges of his sleeves are wet but at least it’s just rainwater. He juggles the umbrella and the suitcase and Yusuf’s attention. “How was the flight?” 

“Excellent,” says Yusuf, nearly bouncing. “I slept the whole plane ride, which is going to do a number on my sleep schedule, but I feel _fantastic_. I’m going to call my girlfriend when I get back up, and tell her all about it.” 

“Very good, Mr. Kapoor,” says Arthur as neutrally as he can manage, and braces his shoulder against the revolving door as they walk in. He busies himself shaking off and putting away the umbrella until he hears the elevator doors close, so he doesn’t have to hear more about Yusuf and his healthy work-life balance. 

The sunrise creeps up on him as it always does, sliding inch by inch across the marble, heating the granite of the concierge desk and lining the edge of it in gold. The sunlight takes slices out of the leather chairs, lights up the edges of the little wire trash cans and the square satin throw pillows arranged _just so_ on the couches to hide the places where the arms and the back collide. The shadows spool out at an angle to the tile running down the length of the lobby floor.

Arthur watches it all, and feels nothing but tired. Whoever the fuck said things were always darkest before the dawn clearly had never worked the midnight-to-eight shift as a concierge. 

Three chapters later, the concierge phone rings, and keeps ringing. Arthur stares dully at it for moments upon moments before he picks it up. “Good morning, this is Arthur at the concierge desk,” he says, and if his consonants are a little too sharp, that’s their business. “What can I do for you today?”

“Oh, fantastic,” says Eames’ voice on the line, and Arthur’s heart jolts in his chest. “Arthur, it’s me.”

“Good morning, Mr. Eames,” says Arthur, coughing a little in surprise. “Are you sure you have the right number?” He’s fidgeting with the pages of his book, riffling them against the pad of his thumb, rubbing a sheet between his knuckles. 

Eames laughs on the line. “Thank goodness I caught you, I wasn’t sure if you’d still be on shift.”

“I’m here until eight,” says Arthur automatically, and mentally adds that possibly he’ll be here until he dies because the rest of this phone call might end him. Eames doesn’t live here anymore, but Eames is still calling.

“It’s entirely possible,” says Eames, “that I left my keys in the building.There’s a poker chip on a chain.” He sounds … smug? Arthur frowns and presses the phone more firmly against his cheek. Eames says, “I need them to get into the main office.” 

“Right, of course,” says Arthur. Nothing untoward, then. Just a lost set of keys, a perfectly reasonable thing to call about. “Let me put you on hold for just a moment, I’ll go check the lost and found.”

“Everyone puts me on hold, darling,” says Eames in a long-suffering sort of way, and Arthur stabs the Hold button with a little more force than is strictly necessary. 

There’s nothing in the shoebox in the back office, and Arthur picks the phone up again to Eames singing under his breath to what must have been the hold music. He sounds relaxed, and Arthur must be on speakerphone because he can hear clattering that sounds like toast being made and buttered, the soft _clink_ of a knife on ceramic. 

“Eames?” 

“Hm?” says Eames. “Oh, wait, did you actually find it in the lost and found?”

“I didn’t, no,” says Arthur slowly. It sounds like Eames knows at least that it wouldn’t have been downstairs. “It must be in 317 then, let me go upstairs and check , if you don’t mind calling back in a little bit?”

“How about I swing by in twenty? I just need coffee first.” 

Arthur frowns at the empty, sunlit lobby. “There’s no guarantee I’ll find it that fast, I can just —”

“I’ll swing by in twenty,” says Eames brightly, and Arthur’s left listening to the dial tone.

Arthur stops outside 317 without ringing the doorbell. 

This was a stupid reason to come back upstairs, just so he can stare at this door. He could have called Yusuf, but he’s already gone up the three flights of stairs. He’s just doing his job thoroughly, because he takes pride in his work.

He knocks and the door opens immediately to Yusuf, who looks dry and warm and satisfied with himself in a way that’s different from when Arthur walked him in. He’s holding out Eames’ keys, threaded through the loop of his thumb and forefinger.

“This is surprising,” says Arthur, because it is.

“No it’s not,” says Yusuf quickly. He stops smirking. 

“...okay,” says Arthur. He reaches his hand out toward Yusuf for the keys but Yusuf doesn’t take the hint. 

“Do you want to hear about the conference?”

Arthur does not. But Arthur also does not want to go downstairs and face Eames after last night and also this morning. “How was the conference?” he asks politely.

“The university paid for me to fly to Virginia and talk to a room full of people for an hour and a half about _arabidopsis thaliana_ ,” says Yusuf, beaming. “Some undergrads asked me what happens when a batch of plants is too genetically fucked up to live and I got to talk for fifteen whole minutes about how we collect seeds in order to rerun our tests. We shake them upside down over paper, you know?” 

“I’m ... glad to hear that?” says Arthur. He isn’t sure how he feels about plants getting roughed around in the name of science, and he really isn’t sure how he feels about the implications of this conversation.

“Thank goodness for do-overs,” says Yusuf pointedly. He finally moves to deposit the keys into Arthur’s hand, and Arthur bewilderedly opens his palm to receive it. 

“Okay,” says Arthur. Something else is happening in this conversation, and it is just beyond his current capability to figure it out. “Thank you, Mr. Kapoor.” 

“Have fun down there, Arthur,” says Yusuf, nodding, and shuts the door on him.

Arthur takes the stairs back down, thinking about what he’ll say when Eames shows up. He mutters variations on “Hello, good morning, I expect you’re here for your keys?” six times in a row and then he’s stepping into the lobby and has to stop because Mrs. Chang is standing by the front desk, which means it’s time for Arthur to be the opposite of a complete disaster. 

“Arthur,” she says, beaming and resting her cane against the desk. “Hustling around again, I see. Never have any time for settling down, hmm?” 

“Oh,” he says, maneuvering himself behind the counter, “it’s alright. I don’t mind the hustling.” He pokes at the computer until it makes it’s booting-up sound and says, “Is your dry cleaning ready to be picked up?”

“Actually,” says Mrs. Chang in her reedy voice, “they changed it for today. Three in the afternoon, instead of eleven in the morning.” She taps the countertop with one manicured nail for emphasis.

“No worries at all, ma’am,” says Arthur, typing in the note without looking. “I’ll leave a note for the next concierge, and he’ll go get it for you, mm.” He catches the movement of the revolving door out of the corner of his eye. “This afternoon, yeah,” he finishes.

“Good, _wonderful_ ,” says Mrs. Chang. “Let me give you a list of what I’m expecting.”

Eames is standing kitty-corner to the concierge desk, where he probably thinks he’s out of Arthur’s sightline. His shoulders are slightly hunched like he’s trying to be unobtrusive, and he’s holding two paper takeaway cups. He’s looking around the lobby instead of at Arthur, but when he catches Arthur looking he toasts him with one of them. 

Arthur turns hurriedly back to Mrs. Chang. “Terribly sorry, Mrs. Chang. Could I ask you to list those articles of clothing again? I’m afraid I missed, um,” he gestures vaguely, “all of it.”

Mrs. Chang takes a look in Eames’ direction and smiles. “Of course, dear. That’s three sweaters. You know, that jade green one I like to wear to Saturday mahjong? And the brown one, and the red one my granddaughter knit for me. And four skirts, and I sent them two vests and my good quilted jacket as well this week, since it’s been getting colder.” 

Mrs. Chang leaves with a last fond pat of the counter for Arthur, clutching her handbag, sandals slapping in rhythm with the quiet thud of her cane. Eames raises his eyebrows at Arthur and starts toward the desk. 

Arthur means to say, _Good morning, Mr. Eames, I have your keys right here_ , but instead he jerks up from the chair and says, “You’re in a suit,” a little breathlessly and with approximately no composure. 

“I have a presentation today about what I want to teach next semester,” says Eames, smiling. “The department is having our monthly staff meeting.” His collar is crooked, and there’s a coffee stain on Eames’ tie. 

“And two coffees, I see,” he says, hands under the counter restlessly touching the raised edges of the familiar computer keys. “Did you not sleep well last night?”

Eames seems both pleased and surprised by this. “As a matter of fact, I slept very well, thank you. But it’s just the one coffee — this is hot chocolate for you.” 

Arthur’s hands go still on the keyboard. 

He wants to know how Eames could know Arthur would find his keys in Yusuf’s apartment within those short fifteen minutes. He wants to know why Eames is still being so friendly, and he wants to drink hot beverages with Eames somewhere outside of this lobby. He doesn’t know how to ask for _any_ of it. “Did you know you have coffee on your tie?” he asks instead.

Eames looks down. “Oh, yeah, I got jostled on the sidewalk coming here.” He shrugs. “Hopefully nobody looks at my tie the whole presentation. It is how it — ” 

“Here,” Arthur interrupts, picking the knot of his tie apart and pulling it out from under his collar in one long gesture. He holds it out toward Eames. 

Eames eyes him, and the tie, and then him again. “Won’t it be unprofessional for you to go about without a tie on?” 

Arthur shrugs, just a slant of his right shoulder, and says, “Nothing wrong with trying new things.” He’s smiling by the end of the sentence. 

“Oh yeah?” says Eames. 

Arthur flaps the tie at him. “Take my damn tie, Eames. You have to go fight your department for what you want, and yours has coffee all over it.” 

Eames puts Arthur’s tie on. It’s darker than Eames’ tie was, and narrower, which does nothing toward making Eames look less devastating. “How do I look?”

“ _Good_ ,” says Arthur immediately and unsubtly. Eames smirks.

Arthur narrows his eyes at him and says, "Now give me your cup."

Eames doesn't. “You _have_ one,” he says, cradling his cup to his chest. “Plus, you have to go to sleep, you can't have caffeine now.’

"I'm not going to _drink_ it." Arthur pulls a sharpie out from under the desk. "Give it here." 

Arthur scrawls his phone number on the cardboard cuff, outlines the seven again to make it look more like a seven. He hands the cup back to Eames. "Call me on this next time, after eight. I have actual work to do on the building line."

Eames is still looking at his cup, turning it a little from side to side in his hands. He looks up at Arthur, his mouth on the edge of a smile, "Alright."

Arthur watches Eames wave goodbye through the front windows, so clear they might as well not exist. He watches Eames stop on the edge of the sidewalk at the crosswalk. He puts his hand in his pocket and touches metal. 

Then Arthur’s out through the revolving doors before he knows it, out into the world, the door _shushing_ to a stop behind him. He runs after Eames, down the street with the keys pressing into his palm and his suit jacket unbuttoned and flapping behind him, running until he clatters to a stop at the corner and Eames turns to look at him, saying, “Arthur—?”

Arthur’s breathing hard, he’s panting, but he holds up the keys and says, “Here.”

“Right,” says Eames, taking it from him. “Right, yeah, thanks.” This strikes Arthur as a weird thing to say if you’ve been worried about being locked out all morning. 

“Missed them a lot, did you?” Arthur asks pointedly. 

“No,” Eames admits, his mouth on the edge of a smile. He pulls another set of keys out of his pocket. This one has a tiny red die on the chain. “Not quite as much as I might have made it seem.” 

There’s a wave of something like relief in Arthur’s chest, rising. The sun warms him from the shoulders of his suit jacket inward. His shadow on the sidewalk is a clean, dark edge. He says, “You can return my tie tomorrow morning at eight-fifteen, at the cafe across the street.”

Eames turns to look at the cafe, turns back to Arthur. “Are you asking me on a date?” He’s smiling, fidgeting with the cardboard cuff of his cup, around and around and around.

“I’m asking you,” Arthur says, “to give me my tie back.” 

“Sure sounds like it,” Eames says. His hair is gold where the light catches it, his hands are still on the cup. He’s squinting, and the sunlight catches the blue of his eyes, the curve of his lower lip. It’s strange, how intimate daylight can be.

“Breakfast for dinner, Eames,” says Arthur. “What’s not to love?”

Eames' eyes crinkle. “Is it really breakfast for dinner if it’s being eaten at breakfast time?”

“It's whatever you want it to be, Eames,” says Arthur.

Eames says, “Then it's a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> hello i'm so sleepy, but i'm on tumblr @hideyseek <3 come say things to me on there pls, i like that alot.
> 
> edited 8/08 for punctuation and minor repeated phrasing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Little Bit In Love With You [ART]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25775266) by [LemonYellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonYellow/pseuds/LemonYellow)




End file.
